Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series I. Culture and Values, Volume 42 General Editor: George F. McLean Associate General Editor: William Sweet Philosophy Emerging from Culture Edited by William Sweet George F. McLean Oliva Blanchette Wonbin Park The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2013 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Philosophy emerging from culture / edited by William Sweet, George F. McLean, Oliva Blanchette. -- 1st [edition]. pages cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series I, Culture and values ; Volume 42) 1. Philosophy and civilization. 2. Philosophy. 3. Culture. I. Sweet, William, editor of compilation. B59.P57 2013 2013015164 100--dc23 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-285-1 (pbk.) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Philosophy Emerging From Culture 1 William Sweet and George F. McLean Part I: The Dynamics of Change Chapter I. What Remains of Modernity? Philosophy and 25 Culture in the Transition to a Global Era William Sweet Chapter II. Principles of Western Bioethics and 43 the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Africa Workineh Kelbessa Chapter III. Rationality in Islamic Peripatetic and 71 Enlightenment Philosophies Sayyed Hassan Houssaini Chapter IV. Theanthropy and Culture According to Karol Wojtyla 87 Andrew N. Woznicki Chapter V. Al-Fārābī’s Approach to Aristotle’s Eudaimonia 99 Mostafa Younesie Part II: The Nature of Culture and its Potential as a Philosophical Source Chapter VI. A Realistic Interpretation of Culture 121 Jeu-Jenq Yuann Chapter VII. Rehabilitating Value: Questions of 145 Meaning and Adequacy Karim Crow Chapter VIII. Globalization and the Emergence of Philosophy 157 in Southeast Asia Tran Van Doan Chapter IX. The Natural, Moral, and Cultural Roots of Humanity 173 Vasil Gluchman Chapter X. Ethical Education and the New Awareness of 181 Values and Virtues in Modern Civilization Marta Gluchmanova iv Table of Contents Chapter XI. The Religious Essence of the Spiritual 187 Anatoliy G. Kossichenko Chapter XII. The Unity of Spiritual Cognition in the Different 191 Cultures of Humanity Sergey Nizhnikov Chapter XIII. Some Reflections on Key Orientations in 209 Philosophical Research in Vietnam Today Pham Van Duc Chapter XIV. Philosophy, Culture, and Human Experience 221 S.R. Bhatt Chapter XV. Philosophy, Cultural Autonomy, and Values 229 Marin Aiftinca Part III: Challenges and Opportunities for Philosophy in a Global Era Chapter XVI. Metaphysics and the Transcendence of Cultures 239 Oliva Blanchette Chapter XVII. Exporting Values 249 G. John M. Abbarno Chapter XVIII. Concrete Humanity and Education for 257 Tolerance of Cultures and Traditions Hans Lenk Chapter XIX. Indian Culture and Its Global Outlook: 269 A Philosophical Analysis Md. Sirajul Islam Chapter XX. The Culture of Enmity against Tolerance 277 in the Balkans Ivan Kaltchev Chapter XXI. Globalization, Culture, and Ethics 283 Musa S. Dibadj Chapter XXII. Going Deeply into the Ground of Culture to Find 291 a New Way: A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Philosophy He Xirong Chapter XXIII. Philosophy and Culture: The Role of Religion? 305 Edward J. Alam Table of Contents v Chapter XXIV. Holistic Postmodernism: A New Paradigm 317 for the Integration of the One and the Many Warayuth Sriwarakuel Chapter XXV. Emplotment and Culturation: A Discourse 331 of Emergent Philosophies Cristal Huang Chapter XXVI. Truth as Equality in a World Cultured 339 by Difference Ogbo Ugwuanyi Chapter XXVII. Facing the Global Crisis: The Role of 349 Philosophy in Challenging Economic Powers Silja Graupe Chapter XXVIII. Religion, Science, and the Culture of Credulity 367 Jānis Ozolins Chapter XXIX. Humanistic Traditions in Russian Philosophy, 387 Past and Present Vasiliy Gritsenko Chapter XXX. Building Cultural Bridges in the Era 393 of Globalization Joseph C. A. Agbakoba Index 403 INTRODUCTION PHILOSOPHY EMERGING FROM CULTURE WILLIAM SWEET and GEORGE F. McLEAN The theme of the 2008 World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul, Korea, “Rethinking Philosophy Today,” was, in many ways, a timely one. The beginning of the new millennium was also the end of the 400 years of the modern era. Since the mid 1970s, philosophers had already begun to speak of a post-modern era, and the attempt to enter the new global arena in terms of the old coordinates of control for national self-interest had shown itself to be a formula for disaster. Global times now endow – and challenge – philosophy with a broad diversity of cultures and civilizations. At the same time, the progressive deepening of human concerns reaches beyond what is clear and distinct to what is of meaning and value, and beyond that which is universal and necessary to free human creativity. There has been a move towards culture, that is, towards persons and communities, which over time and space have cumulatively generated cultural traditions. These two dimensions: one of global breadth and the other of the depth of the human spirit, now combine to open new sources for philosophy as the work of the human spirit. The Seoul World Congress, then, proposed that philosophers rethink the philosophical enterprise, and look for a new paradigm able to integrate the achievements of the past while moving into a radically new era. As groundwork for this broad task, The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP) – with the International Society for Metaphysics (ISM), the World Union of Catholic Philosophical Societies (WUCPS) and Soongsil University (Seoul), with the assistance of the National Taiwan University – held a conference in Seoul during the three days immediately prior the World Congress of Philosophy. Distinct from the World Congress, this conference nevertheless focused on an issue preliminary to its theme: “Philosophy Emerging from Culture.” The papers in this volume, selected from that conference, seek both to provide an elaboration of the theme and to examine the possibility of a new dynamic in philosophy. Following the structure of that conference, the theme of “Philosophy Emerging from Culture” is explored in three parts: The Dynamics of Change – dealing with modernity’s strengths and weaknesses; The Nature of Culture and its Potential as a Philosophical Source and, finally, the Challenges and Opportunities for Philosophy in an era of global awareness and interchange. Each of these three parts has, as an objective, to introduce and unfold the key issues, to engage in substantive 2 William Sweet and George F. McLean reflection upon the perspectives introduced, but also to reflect the breath of the background and philosophical horizons of authors from across the globe. SOME PRELIMINARIES Identifying the Central Concepts To help to understand the theme and central issue of this volume, as well as the contributions of the individual authors to it, it is worth taking a moment to reflect on the key terms and some of the presuppositions. Philosophy. The first and most obvious question is what is meant here by ‘philosophy’? The meaning of the term is, not surprisingly, highly contested – and agreement is far from universal. In fact, according to some authors today, the term has almost no constant meaning. According to Richard Rorty, for example, ‘Philosophy’ is a sufficiently flexible term so that no one is greatly surprised when a philosopher announces that half of the previous canon of ‘great philosophers’ must be thrown out because the problems of philosophy have been discovered to be different than had been previously been thought. Such a philosopher usually explains that the slack will be taken up by something else (‘religion’ or ‘science’ or ‘literature’).1 And, similarly, Justin Smith writes There is no thread of core concerns that weaves across the centuries, tying Plato and Paracelsus and Prinz together. It is true that they are all interested in some of the same things, but each is interested in many things that do not interest the others at all, and each holds these other things to be just as philosophical as what is shared by all.2 Indeed, for some, “the major traditions supported by the profession [of academic philosophy] are exhausted” and that, in its place, one should develop a “philosophy-as-critical-theory” – “a holistic social theory which is at once a descriptive-explanatory social theory, an interpretive social theory and a normative critique” but that “departing radically from the philosophical tradition, ... will be an empirical theory.”3 In many cases, philosophy is a term whose application has been taken to be almost exclusively ‘Western.’ For example, Gene Blocker and Christopher Starling remind us of the Japanese scholar and political theorist of the Meiji era, Nakae Tokusuke who stated that “from antiquity to the present day, there has never been any philosophy in Japan.”4 They cite, as well, the contemporary Japanese philosopher Sakamoto Hyakudai, who, Introduction 3 when asked to “explain the essence of ‘Japanese Philosophy’ … respond[ed] that 'There is no such thing; everything is imported, imitated.”’5 This scepticism or hesitation about philosophy would have been surprising to many of our forebears. As we know, etymologically, philosophy means ‘love of wisdom,’ which would suggest both that there is such a study, and that it is to be found wherever there is a desire and search for, and enjoyment of, wisdom. Reflecting on Greek classical and mediaeval philosophy, for example, we see philosophy described as “The profound knowledge of the universal order, of the duties which that order imposes upon man, and of the knowledge which man acquires from reality.”6 And no doubt at least some of the speculative reflection of Buddhist, Hindu, Egyptian, Ubuntu, and other ancient traditions would fit under this description as well. With the modern period, however, one finds am emphasis on method, on the nature of reason, and on the place of reason in philosophy – seeking clear concepts and ideas, employing evidentialist or deductive models of argumentation, and focusing on the nature and limits of human knowledge rather than the nature of reality.